Today I am off to Jelling which, after Legoland (presumably), is the place of greatest cultural importance to Danes. This was the royal seat of Gorm ‘the old‘ who created the Danish state in the C10th. His son Harald I ‘Bluetooth’, who became king in 950, adopted Christianity soon after, and moved his father’s body from one of the giant burial mounds to a church he had built between them. Harald also erected a rune stone (pictured), dedicated to his father (King Gorm) and mother (Thyra), which also says Harald ‘won for himself Denmark the whole and Norway and made the Danes Christian‘. A second rune stone was erected by King Gorm for his wife. [my Danish colleagues have been correcting me on the history, hence the changes in bold].

The train to Jelling was delayed by 20min! - for a moment I felt like I was at home, but to fair rail in the UK is quite reliable these days, unless it is raining, there are leaves on the line, its snowing, or it gets too hot…

Jelling, though a small place, was very impressive. The museum (which is free) is also well worth a visit, and I was treated extremely hospitably – they even made me tea, with milk! Besides the Jelling cup, which is smaller than I imagined and gives its name to the art style upon it, I was amazed by the finds of wooden spades and even a wheel-less barrow, used by the workmen who built the great mounds. There is also quite a bit about Queen Thyra, who is thought of quite highly by Danes, past and present.

Danish facts: The current queen of Denmark, Queen Margrethe II, is very interested in archaeology, and as a young girl she dug on quite a few excavations (there is an exhibition about it at the Nationalmuseet).

On the train I have been reading about C11th Danish coinage. Interestingly English dies (and later English moneyers) were sent to Denmark, and hence much of this early coinage follows English designs. Even more remarkably this happened before the Danish Conquest of England in 1013/14. I have also been given a book about Roman coin finds in Denmark – which I’ll let the coin freaks in PAS read! Trying not to sound ungrateful, I was hoping to avoid the Romans when I came here. I mean, what did the Romans ever do for us?… (please don’t post replies on that).

Tonight I am attending a couple of lectures (in Danish!) hosted by Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab, so I’d better dash (and remember my phrase book)…

Well, I am afraid my Danish is a bit rusty. The talks were on excavations at Lejre and recent geo-phizz work. The highlight for me was the parallels between figurines believed to be Odin found at Lejre and Harold II in the Bayeux Tapestry – though doubt the Tapestry designer (an Englishman of course) ever made a trip this far north.